Graphic novels selection autumn 2024

We don’t know about you, but we love the autumn, when we’re finally allowed an excuse to curl up on the sofa with a book and a cup of tea, wearing thick woollen socks and a comfy sweater. Join us and dive deep into a personal story in autumnal colours with ‘A Child of Clay’ or giggle with Bart Schoofs or Wide Vercnocke’s absurd humour. Our graphic novel selection for Frankfurt is a small one, but no worries, we’ll be back in January with a new batch for you to explore.

After a year of trying to get pregnant, the verdict is harsh for Ben and Mina: they won’t succeed by natural means. They start out on a long and demanding course of ICSI treatment. Meanwhile Ben, an illustrator, grapples with his feelings by drawing a world of clay, where the creation of a child fails too. In pencil and in orange and blue ecoline, Leroy creates a loving and moving portrait of two people who despite everything keep rediscovering each other.

A selection from a series of vertical comic strips created between 2017 and 2022, the beautifully RISO-printed ‘Thighbootman’ dives deep into Vercnocke’s universe. That universe is almost boundless, aside from the format of the strips. His work is unapologetically fantastical and subversive, as is his humour.

Bart Schoofs (who signs his work ‘brt’) takes aim at our society both extensively and with great precision. Although he mainly pokes fun, with obvious pleasure, at anti-wokers, conscious and unconscious racists or climate-change deniers, nobody is safe from Schoofs, not even himself.